Video is circulating that may show the technical issue that led to the precautionary landing and runway mishap that ended with a PA-12 homebuilt replica flipped on a runway in Michigan. As we reported earlier, the Canadian-registered aircraft was being ferried from Ontario to British Columbia when the pilot elected to make an unscheduled landing at Southwest Michigan Regional Airport in Michigan on Wednesday. The video shows the pilot coping with violent aileron flutter before setting it down in a howling wind storm. The METAR says the wind was at 240° at 27 knots, gusting to 43 knots, against the runway heading of 280. The two people on board suffered minor injuries, and the aircraft was substantially damaged. AvBrief has not been able to verify the video, but the color and placement of the wing struts and aileron match those of the aircraft on the ground in Benton Harbor. The video is being widely distributed through social media as the aircraft involved in the landing mishap at Benton Harbor.
The video shows the aileron fluttering rapidly and flexing the wing several inches outboard of the struts. The aileron movement is transferred to the stick and the pilot’s hand is moved several inches to either side by the shaking. He was able to get the aircraft to the runway and it ended up upside down on the edge of the pavement. The two people on board were flying the plane about 2,000 miles from Ontario to its new owner in Canada’s westernmost province of B.C.
Any pilot, particularly of a light aircraft, will confirm that 240 at 23 gusting to 47 is nowhere near straight down runway 28.
You are correct and I fixed it.
It’s a cub. He could have landed across the runway and had lots of length left!
there is a video on facebook of a crazy amount of wing and aileron flutter.
https://m.facebook.com/reel/1561905484947879/?referral_source=external_deeplink
Wind of 27 kts gusting 43 kts from 240 degrees is almost straight down runway 28? it’s 40 degress off. The crosswind component at 27 kts would be 17.4 kts which is a greater crosswind component than demonstrated for a V35B Bonanza. 43 kts would be a crosswind component of about 27 kts. That’s a huge crosswind, probably double the safe crosswind for that supercub replica. Glad both pilots are OK and the airplane will need some work. Insurance claims cost us all money!!!
Yep. Misread it last night. Fixed now.
That’s at least 20 knots of crosswind.
Runway 28 heading is 274 degrees, the wind is 240. Etc.
But as mentioned, he could have easily landed angling across the runway and had a touchdown speed of practically zero and no crosswind component at all. I had to do that in an Aeronca in Oklahoma once. Landed ninety degrees across and rolled out onto a turnoff taxiway. Had to add power to get across the runway after touching. But….looking at that video and the wing flutter, there was something wrong with the plane anyhow.
These guys are lucky they are alive
Perhaps on its back is where it should stay.
10 post as no one asks why a pilot in 2025 is blindly descending, power up at 2500 and IAS 120, which is a power dive in this plane- IN FLUTTER?
Even aileron flutter is tempting fate.
The landing damage isn’t the story, the flutter was.
Okay Moose, you seem to be asking so do you have an answer?
The video is not that long to really draw conclusions, but since you mention the panel, the plane was below 120, almost 110 kts. it was descending at @ 400 fpm so…a stabilized descent given its wings were shaking like crazy.
Now, you’re the pilot, you have extreme aileron flutter causing the wing to shake to a degree where one may think, the wing will break. What do you do, take your time getting down or do your best to balance descent and speed to get down as fast as possible. Me, I want this plane on the ground in one piece.
as to why landing down the runway. how much turning do you think that plane had or the pilot trusted. I could not see well the compass, but perhaps what the pilot saw in front of him was a runway where he did not have to try and turn with the damn wing shaking like a leave in a blow. How much where with all would anyone in that situation have to the point where the pilot says “Why I can land this broken airplane across a runway”.
FFS, I give this pilot a massive amount of respect. He kept his cool in a plane that was shaking and really really noisy, he kept in in the damn air without breaking anything, and he landed it in extreme conditions, perhaps not realizing the wind conditions other then “Close enough”. The worst thing that happened was it flipped and most importantly, they walked away.
So Moose, tell us what you would have done? Tom Cruise’d it I’ll bet.
(props to the camera guy. Maybe he was thinking, at least the Canadian version of the NTSB will have better evidence. Me sitting in the passenger seat may have just been shitting bricks.)
These kinds of incidents are learning opportunities for all here and you’re being kind of smug and I don’t like that so I’m going to interject here. These are deadly serious events, we do not need to lionize every single little decision a pilot makes just because he gets safely on the ground, in industry criticizing what you did even if the outcome is good is commonly part of a debrief. What flutter is, and what can cause it is basic aeronautical knowledge. Just as basic as the fact that one should pitch for best glide if there’s an engine failure and stay below Va – Maneuvering Speed, in things like turbulence and extreme gusting winds (hint hint!). The pilot in the video, and every pilot here, should have been taught this during PPL training, if not, instruction was remiss. I am going to assert that any pilot should have, committed to memory, that if flutter occurs you should decrease speed immediately to or below Maneuvering Speed. I don’t have the POH for this airplane in front of me but I can almost guarantee you that the published maneuvering speed for this airplane is being exceeded in this video. Pilots must hold themselves to higher standards than accepting “well it’s understandable panic” as a reason to do something extremely dangerous, like try and power through flutter that could easily tear the airplane apart.
Now you could call me an edge case for knowing what flutter is because I am a engineer working in the aerospace, and went to flight school nearly 20 years ago, so maybe my knowledge is above average for pilots, and maybe my flight school taught more technical things and things have gone downhill, but it is completely and totally valid criticism of what happened here to point out that the pilot involved was simply going too fast for conditions and he is lucky he did not tear that airframe apart given the conditions, IAS, and visible and obvious flutter.
Justin’s reply nails the human truth. When the wing is shaking like a dog shedding water, your priority is getting the airplane on the ground before something snaps.
The pilot’s reality was simple. Get it on the ground before something separates.
And he did.
All due respect Raf, but the FIRST priority in a flutter situation is to stop the flutter, not get the airplane on the ground – that’s just for folks out there that might run into a situation like this themselves (which would admittedly be rare). Yes, the human reaction might be to get it on the ground as quickly as possible, but in many flutter cases, you have seconds before a structural failure. Having said that, I agree that getting it back on the ground before something fails would be the very next thing on my priority list because who knows what damage has been done! I’ve had a trim tab flutter, and it was violent – the urge to dive for the ground is great! Slowing down, reduces the energy being put into the system – even if the flutter doesn’t stop, slowing down will hopefully delay ultimate failure.
I’ll also add that it is highly likely that this pilot had already tried to slow down to stop the flutter – it took time for the passenger to get the cell phone out, and we’re only seeing a very tiny slice of time in the video. Without the FULL story, speculation is useless, and I am happy the pilot got themselves and the passenger down safely. I’m not commenting on the incident – just what a pilots response should be to the onset of flutter.
I think something broke in the airplane and to fly slower to reduce the flutter can help but unlikely when the wing was compromised. In this case, both occupants are lucky to come out alive.
That might be true – but without actual evidence, it’s just pure speculation. My point is that in general, if you feel flutter in the airframe, the first thing to do is slow down. and again – this particular pilot might very well have done that – we don’t know for sure until we get the whole story.
Paul, thanks. Reducing speed to minimize or stop the flutter comes first. Then land.
I have a PA-12, though with the original 108 hp engine. To get down fast, power to idle and slip. With a nasty cross wind, I like the idea of a crabbed approach and putting it on the grass. Here’s a link to the sight picture – take the grass to the right!
I was flying a clipped wing cub at this airport in October – nice people and a good place to get AOG.
Preston, thanks. In normal conditions I’d be right with you: idle, slip, and if the crosswind’s nasty, the grass is even better. BTW: Nice pic, KSBN?
I watched the video and read the article two days ago when it appeared and the image of the aileron flutter has stuck in my head and sends shivers up my neck, even now. This is terrifying stuff. What a blessing they made it safely down before structural failure occurred.
I don’t know the exact reason behind the flutter. However, aileron balance issues (or lack thereof) are always front and center with something like this. Most cubs do not have balanced ailerons, and are somewhat prone to flutter. Especially if the rigging is off and tensions are low. Some airplanes rigged in a warm climate and moved/flown to colder locations have significant changes to cable tension.
Also wanted to add that many modern cubs fly faster than the original, contributing to the flutter risk.
A few thoughts:
1) In an emergency situation, the desire to get on the ground is overwhelming. Glad both occupants are OK.
2) Once flutter starts, the best way to eliminate it is to pull the throttle and slow down. From the video, it appears the aircraft was at a high rate of speed (for that design) with the throttle most or all of the way in.
3) While in an emergency you have to play the hand you are dealt, a quick way to calculate the ballpark crosswind component is to divide the wind angle in degrees off runway heading by 60. In this case, the wind was 240 gusting to 43 across runway 28, or 40 degrees off runway heading. 40/60 = 2/3 * 43 = 29 knots of 90 degree crosswind component. Way above my personal limit for the airplanes I fly and a challenge in any airplane, never mind a cub with flutter.
Actually, if looking down that runway is a 280 heading, and if the aircraft flipped on the alignment it is resting on, then he did land into the wind with little crosswind. Why he flipped before the runway edge, don’t know. But any port in a storm.
Actually, that was a before coffee observation. A flip would have it resting the other was, so disregard.
As Jethro Gibbs would say, Rule #55: When you’re wrong, admit it quick and move on. Aviation’s no place for silly ass pride.
The thing that bothers me about this video is the instrument panel. It is all analog/steam gages. The image of the plane upside down looks like “modern” Cub. Doesn’t it seem odd that it would not have even one digital instrument?
Should you encounter flutter, immediately reduce the airspeed to decrease the energy pumped into the system. That energy builds as the square of the airspeed so a reduction in airspeed can rapidly reduce the energy available to drive the system. Any pilot would want to get on the ground quickly in the situation that the cub pilot experienced, but we all need to learn to ignore the lizard brain and use our rational human brain. The rational response would be to reduce power and slow the aircraft down until the flutter ceased or reduced in magnitude, and then land as soon as possible.
When I experienced aileron flutter in my Mitchelwing U2 in 1985, It started at around 80mph and I immediately slowed the airplane as much as I could. The second asymmetric flutter mode of the entire wing did not change in frequency or amplitude until it stopped near Vmin of around 30 mph.
Slowing down takes the energy away so that is always the best thing to do. Sometimes you can stop flutter by carefully loading the surface such as deploying rudder on a winglet that is fluttering or buzzing. A firm hand on the stick is a dampening device.
Wow! What a discussion. At least he wasn’t also trying to deal with an airline-minded controller. Back in the ‘90s I was landing my 210 at Dulles. The wind was 310 at 35, gusts to 45. 30 was the obvious runway. 30 was closed. Equipment parked at midpoint. “I understand sir, but I still have a mile and will probably make the first turnoff.” “Negative. Cleared to land Runway 1R.” Uncle Coriolis gave us an approach crab of about 45° but I spotted the high-speed taxiways. Maintaining radio silence, I turned right and then lined up with the second high speed exit. I also had to add power to get to the parallel taxiway. Never a comment from the tower. The real exciting part was the 3-mile taxi to Piedmont at the northwest corner of the field.
Reading the thread, the video and the technical curiosity it kicked up pulled me in, and the safety questions kept me researching.
Flutter is one of the few things that can wreck an airplane in seconds, yet it’s nowhere in basic pilot training. They are not in the PHAK, AFH, ACS, Part 61 syllabi, or Part 141 syllabi.
The FAA has ACs on flutter, but they’re written for engineers, not pilots. So most of us never get shown what flutter looks like or that the very first move is simple: pull the power and slow down. That’s the gap.
With homebuilts, flutter margins depend on who built it and how well it was rigged and balanced. EAA has been saying that forever. Tony Bingelis said it best: you don’t assume flutter margins in a homebuilt, you test for them.
https://www.eaa.org/eaa/aircraft-building/builderresources/next-steps-after-your-airplane-is-built/operating-articles/general-operation/control-surface-flutter-problems?
So the pilot’s reaction makes sense. When a wing starts shaking like a wet dog, instinct takes over. Without flutter training, wanting it on the ground isn’t poor airmanship, it’s human.
And it does make you wonder. The FAA seems to assume certified airplanes won’t flutter, that experimentals sort it out in Phase I, the “prove it can fly safely” phase. and that pilots don’t need aeroelastic training. If that’s the thinking, it explains the hole in the system.
–Raf